Urban agriculture, which plays an important role in many
developing countries, is of special significance in sub Saharan
Africa. The extent of urban agriculture varies according to time
and place. In Libreville in 1957, 80 per cent of the women were
reported to cultivate a field [1]. In a 1962 survey of
Ouagadougou, 36.4 per cent of those questioned called themselves
cultivators [2]; a similar percentage was found toward the end of
the 1970s in Yaounde [3]. In 1967 in Dar es Salaam, 18.6 per cent
of the households were engaged in agriculture [4]; during the
last years of the Bokassa regime in Bangui, many of the prisoners
and residents of Ngaragba survived only because of the gardening
efforts of local women [5].

With this large percentage of urban gardeners is an equally
large percentage of urban land dedicated to growing food. In
Zaria, Nigeria, aerial photography showed that 66.2 per cent of
the urban area was cultivated [6]. Such areas could be located
within the city itself or on its periphery. The patterns of
location may change over time, as cultivated land is pushed
outside the city by housing demands that outprice gardens as land
use. This was the case in both Dakar and Brazzaville. The latter,
described in 1963 as a ''garden city" [7], has become a city
in which economic factors decide where urban agriculture
develops. In the ancient cities of the Yoruba in Nigeria,
cultural factors have determined that agricultural activities are
traditionally located on the periphery [8].

There is considerable variation among cities. In Dakar and
Brazzaville, more and more emphasis is placed on vegetables and
condiments, related, no doubt, to the increased imports of wheat
and rice. In other cities, such as Cotonou, there is
small-livestock rearing and some aquaculture [9]. Many towns in
Zaire even include staple foods such as cassava and bananas as
part of urban agriculture. Such suburban neighbourhoods,
including those of Kinshasa, are characterized by a dense cover
of palm trees: without palm oil, the fat and vitamin levels of
the residents would be very low.

The produce and revenues of urban agriculture constitute a
much-needed source of complementary income. Urban agriculture can
be the most important resource for women, who rely on it to
provide at least part of their family's food. It can also be the
principal occupation of men who have no salaried job. In any
case, it is an essential component of survival in the city.

THEORETICAL APPROACH

Most studies on urban agriculture have been done by
geographers. As a result, the extent of urban agriculture, its
location and use of space, and the physical conditions (soil,
climate, etc.) for cultivating different crops have been
emphasized. To such classic studies an ecological perspective has
recently been added. Deelstra [10] has shown how urban
agriculture has favourably influenced the urban ecosystem through
such factors as the use of wastes, the maintenance of water
tables through high water-absorption levels ( which also help to
reduce erosion), the beneficial effects on the micro-climate, and
the savings of fuel that would be needed to bring in supplies
from the countryside. This research has often been undertaken as
part of feasibility studies for development projects [11].

This article differs from previous studies in its emphasis on
the social aspects of urban agriculture. These aspects should be
understood in their fullest extent to include the economic
conditions of urban agriculture, its constraints, and the wide
range of factors that block its widespread development. I assume
that the beneficial effects of urban agriculture are no longer
contested and therefore wish to emphasize the obstacles that
often prevent such a beneficial development from occurring in an
efficient and unrestricted manner. My analysis is based on
observations of a concrete project designed to improve urban
agriculture in Kisangani, Zaire.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF URBAN AGRICULTURE

Generally speaking, urban agriculture can be considered part
of the primary sector of the informal economy in the cities of
developing nations. Apart from agriculture, this sector includes
many other activities that differ according to local conditions.
In Kisangani, for example, the primary informal sector includes
foraging, fishing, poaching, gold and diamond mining, and other
activities often related to colonial exploitation [12]. The
secondary sector includes handcrafts, charcoal production, food
processing, and the like; the tertiary sector consists of small
businesses, including transportation and prostitution.

The informal economy thrives on the fact that the formal
economy is incapable of providing enough jobs, or even sufficient
income for those who are salaried employees. It is not the
purpose of this paper to analyse the many factors that together
result in ''under-development": lack of capital,
exploitation by rich countries, imbalances between rural and
urban areas, as well as varying levels of education and
productive employment. Many persons in cities of emerging
countries who are hard hit by recession owe their survival to the
informal economy. Manono, Zaire, has been transformed into a
garden city, maintaining its population despite the sharp decline
of its tin industry due to a fall in world prices and obsolete
equipment [13].

Thanks to the informal economy, rural migrants can survive in
cities and thus avoid returning to the misery that they left
behind in their villages. A survey of immigrants in Kisangani
showed that there was no relationship between having (or not
having} a formal job and intending to return to one's village
[14]. Only age was a determining factor, as the tendency is to
spend one's infancy and old age supported by others in one's
village.

As far as urban agriculture itself is concerned, it would be
wrong to conclude that rural farmers stand to lose the most from
a reduced urban market. In a country like Zaire, where the
disintegration of the road network enables monopolies to exploit
farmers with unfair purchase prices [14], it is primarily the big
merchants with their own means of transportation who stand to
lose from urban agriculture. For example, the purchase price of
maize was two zaires in 1982-1983 in villages near Lubumbashi but
three to five times as high in the city itself [15]. Thus urban
agriculture in such countries also has a role in encouraging
people to form their own production and consumption systems to
avoid the middlemen. Where such activities have developed, for
example, around Yaounde, few commercial monopolies have arisen
[16].

To summarize, one should not regard urban agriculture as
simply a continuation of the old habits of rural immigrants. It
has more to do with the difficult economic conditions in cities,
especially for those who are not employed in the formal economy
and who may have only a meagre income from informal activities.
As long as such conditions exist, urban agriculture will
continue. Far from being a practice of newly arrived immigrants,
it is often a privileged occupation of those residents who have
enough land around their house. As Sanyal [17] clearly showed in
Lusaka, it is precisely the persons who have been living for at
least seven or eight years in the city who garden. The poorest
have no other possibility than to cultivate their gardens far
away from the city. According to Elwert [18], rural agriculture
is also a combination of subsistence production and market
gardening in proportions that vary according to local conditions.

Finally, there are fundamental differences between rural and
urban food production. In the Congo basin, the abundance of land
enables an extensive form of agriculture, including slashand-burn
techniques. In the absence of fertilization, new areas are opened
up when fertility levels drop. In cities, however, this is not
the case, and one must practice more intensive agriculture.

LIMITS ON URBAN AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA

These differences between extensive agriculture in some
regions and the need to develop intensive cultivation techniques
in cities highlight a problem with urban agriculture, namely, the
lack of appropriate agricultural knowledge. The urban agriculture
project in Kisangani described below began with the observation
by some cultivators that their yields of cassava and bananas were
declining. As it turned out, they were not adequately fertilizing
their crops. When chemical fertilizers are either too expensive
or simply unavailable, there is always the possibility of
composting. Other poorly understood problems were protection
against the strong tropical sun and torrential rain. It was also
difficult to protect crops against insects.

The traditional farming techniques used in rural areas are
often not applicable in urban areas or are disregarded for other
reasons. In certain parts of the Congo basin, for example,
elephant excrement is used against insects. Colonial agronomists
who discredited crop associations have also left their mark to
the extent that one may speak of ecological colonialization. In
short, a major obstacle to urban agriculture is in the realm of
appropriate cultivation techniques. The survival margins in these
cities are also so small as to prohibit the kind of
experimentation that is possible in rural areas [19]. The
traditions and experiences found in villages, and the networks of
solidarity that reduce the impact of experimental losses, are
missing in urban areas.

Another problem is a lack of tools. Although some equipment is
available in most African cities, it is rare to find specialized
tools, such as forks, that are needed to work soil hardened by
erosion and the sun Some of these tools can be bought in
Kisangani but at exhorbitant prices for local residents. It is
thus those who need tools most -the poor-who must do without.
There is also a problem with transportation. To move compost, one
must have access to carts. To supply urban markets, especially
from plots on the periphery, bicycles are also advantageous.

Finally, the supply of seeds is often far from adequate. Local
varieties are certainly resistant, but they often have very poor
yields. Some plants are very good cash crops but do not provide
seeds on the sandy soils of Kisangani. It is also doubtful that
results of research and development on local plants such as
cassava would benefit poor urban cultivators. Thus, while
recognizing the advantages of urban agriculture in Africa, one
must not overlook the technical constraints that exist.

Urban agriculture in Kisangani is normally undertaken by
individuals and families. This does not exclude, under certain
conditions, the formation of groups of cultivators, such as
students. At the University of Kisangani, students in one
residence formed a gardening co-operative when the university
restaurant was closed. In parts of the city with ethnic
homogeneity, a few groups were also formed, but this is rare.
Ethnic and tribal relationships are maintained in the cities but
generally operate only at the political level between tribes with
respect to hiring and job placement and the management of savings
co-operatives. The conditions that make for productive
cooperation in villages are no longer present in the cities.
Nevertheless, a certain level of organization does enable the
limited means to be used profitably.

THE URBAN AGRICULTURE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN KISANGANI

The urban agriculture improvement project in Kisangani started
in 1978 in response to the problems identified above. An
agricultural technician was hired to teach organic fertilizing
techniques, biological plant protection, and improved germinating
methods [20]. For demonstration purposes, compost was developed
using the wastes of the abattoir, market, kitchens, and
restaurants in the local leader's neighbourhood. Considerable
land was available in this essentially poor area, some of which
was already cultivated. Land was also available on the periphery
of the area. covered with palm trees or shrubs or lying fallow.

The local leader was included in the planning because it was
understood that the project would be poorly viewed if the local
administration was not treated properly. The field workers held
two discussions per week and regularly visited the gardens to
offer advice. The cultivators themselves asked for seeds for
"European vegetables." In principle such crops sold
very well at the market, and not only to expatriates. However,
the possibility of an increase in the consumption of such
vegetables is not a question of taste but of the ever-decreasing
purchasing power of the majority.

After 15 months, about 70 households had taken advantage of
the project to start gardens. Some techniques, such as cold
frames, were quickly adopted and even refined, while others, such
as composting, were not yet fully used. The biggest problem was
the lack of social organization. The project was only a
collection of local residents working around a somewhat
paternalistic expatriate.

What can explain this rather surprising success supported by
only modest resources? What had stopped this from happening
before? Why did an expatriate have more success doing this than a
member of the local administration or hierarchy? To answer these
questions, it is essential to consider the likelihood that the
expatriate was not compromised by the local power struggles and
intertribal conflicts that are very important in this ethnically
mixed city. One must also take into consideration the fact that
an expatriate is generally not suspected of being part of the
local power base that corrupts or exploits the poor [211.
Although this may overestimate the economic power of the
expatriate, the project seemed to create an environment in which
persons could work without being exploited. The national
reticence toward this kind of project was apparently neutralized
in Kisangani.

The Co-operative Phase

After the expatriate supervising team was withdrawn, the
number of gardeners fell to about a dozen or so. It increased
again after a German aid agency became interested in financing a
follow-up project. The agency insisted, however, that the project
should be formalized and incorporated as a cooperative. The
gardeners thus understood that the local leader would become
president of the cooperative as prescribed by co-operative law in
Zaire. The members would receive credit in the forms of tools and
seeds, and give 10 per cent of their earnings to the
co-operative.

Unfortunately, after a brief period of positive development, a
crisis arose: the president of the cooperative took more than his
share of the tools and accorded even more to his own superior in
the local administration, leaving the cooperative with only a
symbolic sum of money. He monopolized the transportation
equipment and made every effort to divert the development funds,
which were supervised by a local priest. He also tried to
overrule the cooperative's own treasurer, who finally diverted
the money himself.

Such behaviour cannot be blamed simply on the character of the
local leader, as it is part and parcel of public administration
in Zaire. The lack of support for urban agriculture is also shown
by the fact that the local administration never accorded it legal
status, considering it to be a "traditional activity,"
which shows the scorn and indifference with which it was treated.
At one point the project was offered this legalization, but only
on the condition that the soya be sold to a local mill for
one-fourth of its real value. Unfortunately, such official
disdain for urban agriculture is not restricted to Zaire. in
Nairobi the local government at one point went so far as to order
the destruction of spontaneous agriculture within the city [22].
Given such an attitude on the part of the local officials and
their representation on the project, it is no wonder that the
ordinary members of the cooperative gave up. They also neglected
to pay back their loans and resumed selling their own produce.

Urban agriculture increases when city prices increase because
poor roads reduce the supply of produce from the country. One
cannot simply transfer the cooperative model from rural to urban
areas, however. In villages, the lack of customers means that the
cooperative is the only place to sell produce, but this is hardly
the case in cities. Rural cooperatives also benefit from the
traditional leadership and solidarity that still reign in these
areas, with disputes being resolved more or less by consensus.
The replacement or disempowerment of such leaders in urban areas
by local administrators resulted in the co-operatives around
Kisangani becoming a means to exploit their members and thus in
their failure.

The Authoritarian Phase

When the democratically structured co-operative failed, it was
replaced by a strictly commercial company. After the removal of
the president, the former scientific advisor took over as
director. He put the agronomists beneath him in charge of new
sections on techniques and training and extension, and demoted
the technician to supervise the gardeners directly.

The original system of individual gardens, difficult to
control because of varying yields and thefts, was replaced by
community plots that were easier to supervise. One of these plots
was offered to the project by the Catholic Church, and the other
was located in a fertile valley that had not been built up
because of mosquitoes. Both of these fields were planted with
either European vegetables or spinach, which were very good
dry-season crops given the irrigation made possible by digging
wells.

Contrary to the plans, women did not-or were not allowed
to-participate in the project. This was explained by the fact
that it made sense to grow some of the vegetables as cash crops
with an intensive production system. Given the traditional roles
of women as responsible for subsistence crops and men for cash
crops, this effectively put women out of the picture. As a
result, the men suddenly became responsible for something in
which basically they had had little experience. Thus, it was
necessary for them to take a training course. They worked for
three months on the community fields (which had become
demonstration gardens) for a ridiculous salary justified by the
"training " that they were receiving. After additional
theoretical training of 15 days, they could then work for
themselves.

In this authoritarian reorganization, th director began to
treat the project as his own private property. He monopolized the
use of the goods and services for his own interest and discreetly
tried to transfer control of the project to another organization
in which he was involved. These manoeuvres resulted in
considerable objections by the gardeners, who protested their
removal from any management decisions by such actions as
contacting the original founder of the project and the German
development agency. When it became evident that the promises made
as a result of their objections were not fulfilled, most of them
quit the project and resumed their individual efforts at urban
agriculture within the constraints mentioned above. Some of them
tried to organize another independent, self-managed project by
asking the director to relinquish the equipment and capital of
the original project.

Again, to appreciate the significance of this phase of the
project fully, one should not attribute its failure simply to the
personality of the director. In reality, his behaviour reflects
the attitude of many of the members of the educated bourgeoisie
in Zaire. By using their modern training to legitimize their
supposed superiority and leadership calling, they contribute to
the authoritarianism that is widespread in the country.

CONCLUSION

This article underlines the fact that urban agriculture is
indispensible for many people living in African cities. This does
not mean to say that it is very well developed. On the contrary,
it simply has been developed to the point of enabling people to
survive. Those in a position to develop it further, notably the
authorities, have done nothing about it.

The situation is different in China, for example, where
neighbourhood groups organize urban agriculture activities with
the support of the local authorities. This criticism of African
authorities should not be seen as supporting the
bureaucratization of urban agriculture, which benefits above all
from the spontaneity, flexibility, ingenuity, and initiative of
its practitioners. It merely means that authorities should
support these efforts and provide people with means to increase
their productivity. In order to bring about improvement, it is
certainly important to experiment with the different possible
organizational forms of urban agriculture, but it must be
remembered that these experiments will take place in a social and
cultural environment that not only affects such developments but,
as in the above example, is a determining factor.

Generally speaking, urban agriculture projects are not part of
foreign-funded development programmes and thus are not given high
priority. Where such projects exist, they often benefit members
of the local elite. I have tried to show that urban agriculture
is not simply an agronomic affair or a geographical paradox but
an economic and political problem. At the same time, one cannot
fault just the local authorities for the underdevelopment of
urban agriculture in Africa. Industrialized countries must also
share the blame for their unwillingness to fund urban garden
projects.